2. French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged in New York for allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel maid.

It’s been impossible to miss these top stories in recent days. They grabbed headlines from around the world. They led evening news show lineups. And, of course, they offered plenty of fodder for late-night comics.

The stories are dripping with all things that make for great water cooler talk: sex, power, falls from grace. Danielle Steele herself couldn’t write it better.

But the story is certainly nothing new. We’ve watched successful man after successful man and storybook marriage after storybook marriage tumble in eerily similar ways.

Now, I’m not a guy, so I might have all this wrong. But I can’t bring myself to believe that it’s a wholly physical temptation that makes men risk it all — just for sex.

Perhaps it’s a power thing, a need to prove dominance over everyone and everything. Maybe it’s simply weak character, an inability to resist physical temptation that presents itself again and again.

But somehow, I don’t think that’s it. Most successful people don’t rise to the tops of their fields because they have poor character or consistently bad judgment.

Rather, I’m inclined to believe it’s a matter of ego: that each sexual encounter serves to satisfy the constantly stroked ego of a man who spends his days being doted on by others. A wife — no matter how beautiful and attentive — simply can’t keep up with that.

Perhaps more disturbing than seeing a few celebrities fall from grace, however, is the way the American public salivates at the news. We barely give new marriages a honeymoon period before rumors and innuendos begin. We scrutinize every nuance and believe every “source close to the couple,” all in an attempt to spot a marriage on the rocks.

We celebrate marriage in this country with parties and diamonds and champagne. Yet we hold it in such low regard that we wait around, vulturelike, for the next one to crumble.

Sure, it’s the media’s fault. But who watches it? We are the ones who tune in for the celebrity gossip news, and then we switch stations when the newscaster begins talking about foreign relations. We are the consumers scooping up People magazine while leaving The Wall Street Journal behind.
You never see anyone reading an economic analysis in the grocery store line.

In the end, I think we like getting our egos stroked, too. We see beautiful people with a lot of money who are adored by millions. And then we see a crack in the facade. Suddenly, our boring lives seem a bit better. Sure, we haven’t had our monthly Botox, but at least we know where our husbands are.

We’re a contradiction to ourselves. If we’re truly going to celebrate weddings then we need to step up and respect marriages, too. We need to give celebrity couples the chance to redeem themselves and the privacy to save their relationships.

It’s up to us, the gossip consumers, to take the high road and show that marriage is worth at least that much.

Elizabeth Davies can be reached at edavies@rrstar.com.

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